Norman Doidge’s two books, The Brain That Changes Itself(more than a million copies sold) and, just published, The Brain’s Way of Healing (which comes complete with that “mind-bending” quote, from the New York Times), present such dilemmas within their own covers. Merzenich inspired me to tryout his BrainHQ app.W hen you pick up a bestseller that announces “this book will change your life”, or which, say, claims to be full of “mind-bending, miracle-making, reality-busting stuff”, what are your first instincts? Do you think “wow!” or “whoa”? In a bookshop, faced with a choice of browsing, do you turn most often toward shelves marked definitively “science” or those labelled provocatively “mind, body, spirit”? ‘Use it or lose it’ is very much the motto throughout and the section on our cognitive skills and the work of Dr.

I struggle with my memory, and it’s something I need to work on. Like most people, I am aware of how ageing affects the brain. It takes work and time, but it does seem possible for the brain to rewire itself. I was particularly interested in the work done on rewiring the brain, and some of the case studies on stroke victims were interesting. I found some of the experiments, particularly on monkeys, to be disturbing, with casual mentioning of cutting nerves in arms and removing parts of the brain. Ramachandran, who became the first physician to ‘perform a seemingly impossible operation - the successful amputation of a phantom limb.’ Amazingly, this is done with mirrors.Īs an animal lover, I did not like the references to animal testing throughout the book. I found the chapter on ‘pain’ to be fascinating, especially about Dr. It’s fascinating to see just how malleable the brain is, and how we can change it through learning and experience. Modern science has disproved this idea, and the book describes how the brain is much more fluid than this. Medicine has long held the idea of ‘Localisation’ - the brain is static and each part performs only one function. There is the woman who feels like she is constantly falling, and the lady who has only half a brain. Doidge uses case studies involving actual patients who have suffered brain injuries and made recoveries. It’s a book about a interesting subject - Brain plasticity - and written in an accessible and engaging style. In many ways, ‘the brain that changes itself’ was the perfect book for me. It’s called a challenge for a reason, and it ties in with the message of this book.

But it was also the reason I started the challenge - to push myself. I have a blind spot when it comes to science and tend to avoid books on the subject. When I started the 2022 Non-fiction challenge ‘the brain that changes itself’ by Norman Doidge was the sort of book I thought I might struggle with.

The brain that changes itself chapters